Auggy was drinking this a couple of days ago, and so I decided to drink it as well, as I’d also gotten some from teaplz. [Folks, it took me literally five minutes to structure that sentence to a point where it made sense so please bear with me today. I also just typed out “sentence,” as esetnce, senetence, setence, sentece, and pony. I don’t know what’s going on this week, I’ve got a really bad case of the mental klutzes.]

I was expecting something like Decaffeinated Chai Agni. That, this was not.

I should have been expecting it after reading Auggy’s review [which I am now perusing again and is bringing me to realize I’m about two days behind on logs]. First of all, at times it smelled like Red Vines [best red licorice ever]. Red Vines, but also…peanut brittle? Maybe? It was something specific, but I couldn’t quite place it and whatever it was that I was smelling was not matching up with what I was expecting to smell.

When I started sipping it, all I could think at first was, “Yep. This isn’t chocolate.” When I began to try and place what it was, all I could think of was that toffee, caramel-like, brittle-taste. I’d almost call it butterscotch. Somewhere in that general family of tastes was where this landed for me.

And then the chili started to arrive, like a train approaching in the distance. I could feel its presence in little pwiffs on the tip of my tongue, and then it grew in volume where it was undeniably there. Luckily, it remained at a volume where it was enjoyable. In that aspect, it reminded me quite a bit of the Decaf Chai Agni [and thankfully, not of the Mayan Chocolate thing].

I’d like to say that I was able to find some chocolate in the tea, but I don’t think I did. At times, I thought I might be tasting it, but it never grabbed me enough to be able to say anything definitively. What I did taste, when I thought I was tasting it, wasn’t a dark chocolate, or a cocoa, or a good milk chocolate taste. It wasn’t Godiva, and it wasn’t even Hershey’s, it was like…Russell Stover. Or Fannie May. Not that I want to rag on those two companies, but in the hierarchy of quality chocolate I’d pin them near the bottom of the totem pole. It’s not that they’re bad, they’re just…no Scharffen Berger. So I’m going to officially unofficially declare that this tea had no chocolate taste for me.

When these two things came together [and it’s possible there were more components to it that I just wasn’t able to pick out], I didn’t really know what to think. Forgiving the absence of chocolate in a supposedly chocolate tea [which was a bit of a high hump to climb over] the tastes did not marry well in my mind. When I think butterscotch sprinkled with chili powder, I do not think, “Oooh, NOM.” And that is what I was essentially tasting. To repeat the mantra that I seem to be using for many of these types of teas that fall in this category for me, “It wasn’t bad, it was just…not good.”

The chili on its own was nice. That was at a good level. I wish I had gotten some vanilla bean from it like Auggy had, because I can see vanilla and chili possibly working together well-ish.

I can’t paint my face and jump up screaming in the stands for this tea. I’m not even sure that I’d sit there and half-heartedly wave a flag. But I’ll go to the game and drink a beer. And if they want me to hold up one of those colored cards to make some kind of picture message at some point, I’ll do that, too, even if mainly because no one likes the dead-pixel-a**hat who refuses to do even that. This metaphor is out of control. I’m going to end this log.

Preparation

I think this tea rating depends on expectations. I had to do a pretty big mental reset based on my first sip to fall in love with this tea because it was so not what I was expecting. I’m just hoping my second cup will be filled with as much love as the first since now I know what to expect. If that makes sense.

@Auggy I was thinking about this more as I was writing it, and the overall flavor of the tea just didn’t agree with me. I’m not sure what it was about it, but even with the expectation of chocolate having faded, every single sip that I took of it just wasn’t marrying well for me. There was something decidedly off about it for me throughout the entire cup and though it wasn’t so echy I didn’t want to finish the cup, the off-kilterness of it all made me feel weird. So the rating wasn’t based on the chocolate [or lack there of] expectation, though I did dock some points since it is being advertised as a chocolate tea. It was mainly due to the fact that I didn’t like the tea as a whole.

And yeah, I know what you mean about low-quality chocolate. I think I described it in one review to those Easter Bunnies that nobody eats made of that plastic-tasting chocolate. I still haven’t tried this one yet, so I can’t comment, but I wonder where my tastes will fall!

I just realized my comment sounded like I think your rating was based on expectations and that’s not what I meant. Sorry! I was thinking of my experience with it and how it was so different from what I expected to get out of it and how that really threw me, making me want to give it something between the red face and the ‘meh’ face. And I can totally see how butterscotch would not marry well with chili. I think I lucked out in that the flavor made me think of vanilla bean which went with the chili better. Not that I think it was actually vanilla bean, just that that’s what it made my brain connect to.

Totally with you on the bad chocolate flavors. If I had a time machine I’d destroy whoever thought it was a good idea to make chocolate flavored hard candy… And if you ever receive a sugar free Whitman’s sampler from someone, it’s safe to say that they don’t like you very much.

@Auggy Haha, no problem. I still have a little bit of it left, so I’m sure I’ll try it again. Maybe it will sit better for me next time. But even though I was trying to rein in my “where’s the chocolate?!” problem, I still feel like the vendor is equally at fault for billing this as a chocolate tea. I only took off about 5 points for that, but I think that those five points are going to stay off even if I end up liking it a tremendous amount more.

@Micah Hehe, I was gonna keep going and then my brain went, “Dude…stop.” And OH GOD, the Whitman samplers. I didn’t know they even made sugar free, but that just makes it even sadder. Someone cue the sad horns. Wah waaah.

Aww, thanks so much! Those days have been coming more often than I’d like lately, unfortunately! Mere annoyance when you’re trying to write a tea log; absolutely maddening when you’ve got a lab report you need to turn in!

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I think this tea rating depends on expectations. I had to do a pretty big mental reset based on my first sip to fall in love with this tea because it was so not what I was expecting. I’m just hoping my second cup will be filled with as much love as the first since now I know what to expect. If that makes sense.

@Auggy I was thinking about this more as I was writing it, and the overall flavor of the tea just didn’t agree with me. I’m not sure what it was about it, but even with the expectation of chocolate having faded, every single sip that I took of it just wasn’t marrying well for me. There was something decidedly off about it for me throughout the entire cup and though it wasn’t so echy I didn’t want to finish the cup, the off-kilterness of it all made me feel weird. So the rating wasn’t based on the chocolate [or lack there of] expectation, though I did dock some points since it is being advertised as a chocolate tea. It was mainly due to the fact that I didn’t like the tea as a whole.

And yeah, I know what you mean about low-quality chocolate. I think I described it in one review to those Easter Bunnies that nobody eats made of that plastic-tasting chocolate. I still haven’t tried this one yet, so I can’t comment, but I wonder where my tastes will fall!

I just realized my comment sounded like I think your rating was based on expectations and that’s not what I meant. Sorry! I was thinking of my experience with it and how it was so different from what I expected to get out of it and how that really threw me, making me want to give it something between the red face and the ‘meh’ face. And I can totally see how butterscotch would not marry well with chili. I think I lucked out in that the flavor made me think of vanilla bean which went with the chili better. Not that I think it was actually vanilla bean, just that that’s what it made my brain connect to.

Totally with you on the bad chocolate flavors. If I had a time machine I’d destroy whoever thought it was a good idea to make chocolate flavored hard candy… And if you ever receive a sugar free Whitman’s sampler from someone, it’s safe to say that they don’t like you very much.

@Auggy Haha, no problem. I still have a little bit of it left, so I’m sure I’ll try it again. Maybe it will sit better for me next time. But even though I was trying to rein in my “where’s the chocolate?!” problem, I still feel like the vendor is equally at fault for billing this as a chocolate tea. I only took off about 5 points for that, but I think that those five points are going to stay off even if I end up liking it a tremendous amount more.

@Micah Hehe, I was gonna keep going and then my brain went, “Dude…stop.” And OH GOD, the Whitman samplers. I didn’t know they even made sugar free, but that just makes it even sadder. Someone cue the sad horns. Wah waaah.

Aww, thanks so much! Those days have been coming more often than I’d like lately, unfortunately! Mere annoyance when you’re trying to write a tea log; absolutely maddening when you’ve got a lab report you need to turn in!